By Terry Wade
DALLAS (Reuters) - A second Texas healthcare worker who treated the first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States has tested positive for the disease, the Texas Department of State Health Services said on Wednesday.
At least 4,447 people have died in West Africa in the worst Ebola outbreak on record, but cases in the United States and Europe have been limited so far. The virus can cause fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea, and spreads through contact with bodily fluids.
In Dallas, the worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, who cared for Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan, was immediately isolated after reporting a fever on Tuesday, the state health department said.
"Health officials have interviewed the latest patient to quickly identify any contacts or potential exposures, and those people will be monitored," it said in a statement.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said at an early morning news conference on Wednesday the second infected nurse lived alone and had no pets. He said local health officials moved quickly to clean affected areas involving the second nurse and alerting her neighbors and friends.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital is doing everything it can to contain the virus, said Dr. Daniel Varga of Texas Health Resources, which owns the hospital. "I don't think we have a systematic institutional problem," he said.
Another nurse, 26-year-old Nina Pham, was the first person to have been infected by Ebola in the United States, and was diagnosed this weekend. She had cared for Duncan during much of his 11 days in hospital. He died in an isolation ward on Oct. 8.
The hospital said on Tuesday that Pham was "in good condition".
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that it was performing confirmation testing of Texas' preliminary tests on the new patient.
"An additional health care worker testing positive for Ebola is a serious concern, and the CDC has already taken active steps to minimize the risk to health care workers and the patient," it said in a statement.
CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said on Tuesday that the agency was establishing a rapid-response team to help hospitals "hands on, within hours" whenever there is a confirmed case of Ebola.
Frieden has come under pressure over the response and preparedness for Ebola, but White House spokesman Josh Earnest said U.S. President Barack Obama is confident of Frieden's ability to lead the public health effort.
REINFORCING STAFF
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, in a series of media interviews on Wednesday, said officials are adding staff to ensure that the hospital in Dallas follows proper procedures to prevent transmission of the virus.
The hospital now has an on-site manager to oversee the facility, she told NBC, and two nurses from Emory University, which has a specialized hospital that has treated other Ebola patients flown in from West Africa, are now in Dallas to train staff.
Asked if she had confidence in Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, Burwell said officials are focused on helping to implement "protocols that we know can work and have worked for over 30 years in terms of fighting Ebola."
U.S. health officials are working with local clinicians and "making sure that we're providing the best care that we can for those patients ... making sure we're doing everything we can to protect healthcare workers," she told NBC's "Today" program.
"We will continue to monitor the situation, and our people are on staff on site doing that right now," Burwell said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on MSNBC on Wednesday that regardless of the reason, something went awry in the treatment of Duncan.
"It is not acceptable that two nurses taking care of a person because of their exposure there were infected. That should not have happened," he said.
Obama is due to hold a video conference on Wednesday with British, French, German and Italian leaders to discuss Ebola and other international issues, the White House said.
Prospects for a quick end to the contagion fell as the World Health Organization predicted that Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three worst-hit countries, could produce as many as 10,000 new cases a week by early December.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Kaminsky, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Curtis Skinner; Editing by Louise Ireland and Mohammad Zargham)